An interesting object discovered while playing with a Helix spline shape in 3dsmax. The workflow began as a helix spline (of course), created using a fabulous, yet simple add-on called Helix Pro by Joker Martini. It's basically a helix spline on steroids. Anyway, gave the shape rectangular thickness of 13H by 3L, with 20 sides, and 7.5 turns, with an equal radius of 20 for both radii (start and end). Then a bend modifier on top of that, set to bend along the Z axis 360 degrees. This is where the fun began. Next, in the stack, I applied radial symmetry, slicing the shape along the X axis for a count of 3, then mirroring the result, and welding the vertices. Converted the resulting shape, which is basically what you see here, to a editable poly, then chamfered all the border edges to the amount of about 0.3. Then another edit poly modifier to top off the stack, and select my material zones. Then output to Luxrender for rendering. Thought the result was interesting. Hope you like.

Never saw a shape quite like this before. Amazing that you got this from a helix spline. I tried very quickly to follow the workflow in your description, but you must be leaving out a few criticalsteps, because I ended up with a mess. haha. Not sure, really, how you sliced the shape using "radial symmetry". That's the part that had me lost. Great work.

Radial symmetry is simply slicing an object at equal angles along a specific axis center point, which needs to be offset slightly to get the results you would expect. This isn't something the standard slice tool can do by itself. You need some additional help with Maxscript.